The Coward’s Tale Read online

  Matty Harris might be unlocking the door of the Savings Bank as Half goes by. I have seen Half looking at Matty, no relation, grunting and patting the pram. I have seen how Matty Harris will cough and straighten his back against the street, and close himself into the Savings Bank.

  See, there was a day not long back when I followed Half Harris and his pram all the way to the Taff. Followed him at a count of nineteen, I did, not to be seen, although Half was dancing in the gutter by the factories and tippy-toeing onto the old coal tips, patting the earth and smiling, and he wouldn’t have noticed an earthquake happening beneath his boots.

  I ducked behind the garages and took my old bones all the way to the Taff. And I watched him, oh yes. Watched him talking to the river, leaning out over the water and catching his old cloths and string from the low branches, then nodding and smiling like the river said thank you or sorry. Watched him nodding and dipping his sticks into the river and catching his fish. Cardboard, sodden. A plastic bag or two, shining and bright and covered in words. Rope with a knot.

  A good catch it was, held up to the sunshine, shaken, river water flying like drops from a shaking dog. But I saw something else for you to keep between your ears.

  There was more than just Half Harris at the river that day. There he was with his pram and his grunts, and there along the bank were real fishermen. Who else but Matty Harris himself and Philip ‘Factual’ Philips the Deputy Librarian with their fishing rods all shining, their flasks and stools, their nets all ready to land their catch? And Half Harris saw them the same moment I did, and he was off up the bank, flapping his hands and stamping his boots, and the real fisherman flapped their hands back and waved him away, for he was frightening their fish, see?

  Half Harris ran up and down the bank of that river like a dog in a cage, wringing his hands. And then he ran off, back to his pram, and Matty Harris and Factual Philips laughed and went back to casting their flies. And Half got to his pram, and he threw his catch back into the river with great splashes, over and over. Cardboard and sticks flying through the air to land in the water, or in the branches. And the men stood up and shouted at him to be quiet. But Half Harris hadn’t finished, had he? No, he had not.

  Half Harris pushed along the bank under the trees to the bend where the water runs smooth and slow, and he leaned right out with his sticks and beat the water to a froth. He beat and he beat at his friend the river until the mud was all stirred up and Half Harris waved his sticks and his arms then, and filled the air with his grunts.

  A commotion, then, I can tell you. Matty Harris and Factual Philips were shouting, and catching their lines in the trees, and dropping their bags and tipping them up, tins of bait falling into the river and onto the bank and fresh maggots on the mud wriggling for the happiness of the thing. And the shouts telling Half Harris that they did not want the company of halfwits, and he must find another day to bother the river, not theirs.

  Three times, I went. Three times I hid, and saw Half Harris beating the river with those sticks to stop the other fishermen catching his fish. Oh yes, I follow the fine fishermen on Saturdays and Sundays with their shining new fishing rods, and their canvas bags, and their chairs, and maybe a bottle or two of ale from The Cat. And I follow Half Harris on the other days of the week. And I cross my fingers for the fish.’

  The Halfwit’s Tale and the Deputy Bank Manager’s Tale iii

  Today, when it has been cold as a sneer for weeks, most unusual for September, and there is even a frost in the mornings like a shroud, and the earth is frozen, Half Harris closes the door to number eleven Maerdy Street as gentle as a feather. And what’s in the pram with the sticks but two old blankets from his own bed. He’s left a single wavy line in biro on the back of an envelope for Lillian Harris, his old mam, on the kitchen table, propped against a jar of cut-price jam.

  His breath makes clouds as he wheels his pram along Maerdy Street. He laughs and walks faster, snapping the clouds between his few teeth. He goes down the hill to town and goes to Ebenezer, and finds Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins asleep in the porch under his newspapers. He creepies up sideways and lays a blanket over, and Ianto Jenkins opens one eye as a thank you, and raises a hand. Half Harris nods.

  Today, the road down to the river is frozen and there is ice flashing in the gutter, cold as cold, and in the soil on the coal tips. Half parks the pram and climbs up the tip to the scar where the ice flashes, and he pats the earth.

  Then off he goes to the river, under beeches where the ice bends the branches into the water. And the water is not running. The beech trees are tied to the river, unmoving. There are no ropes and knots for Half Harris to catch today and the river is bare as bones, but beautiful. Half smiles at the eddies and deeps caught and silent. He smiles at the shallows where the froth is frozen to the bank, and catches a glimpse of his own face smiling up at him, then it is gone like it was never there. So he pushes his pram out onto the river to look for his face, in case it was him under the ice and he is just a ghost walking on the air.

  He pushes his pram right on to the river, and he walks on the water. And the water holds Half Harris in its hand, as flat and weighty as the stilled blood near a stopped heart. Half Harris spreads his arms and lifts his knees, and he dances on his friend the river, solid and shining. He wheels round and round and his coat flies up like the angels’ wings in Ebenezer Chapel windows. And in his dance he drops to one knee and raises his eyes to the white trees where heaven shows through the branches.

  But then, oh then. He puts one hand on the ice to help him stand, and there, beneath his hand, is a face. He takes the hand away, and peers, to see his own face down there in the river . . . but he does not. He sees the face of a fish, its gills turned to silver, its mouth open and its eye open, that mouth and eye saying sorry and thank you and all the things the rivers say to the sea. And it is looking up straight at Half, and he looks back at the fish, at a small bubble of glass caught on a lip, a fin rippling, and it is beautiful. Half falls back to his knees and rubs at the river with his fingers, painting the river with water, as the fish sends cold questions through the ice.

  He goes back to the bank and tries to break a branch from a beech tree, then an alder, but they will not come. And he goes to another and another tree and tries to break branches, reaching up and hanging from them, twisting them where he can, and they will still not come. And he sits by his pram in his boots and wonders. Then he smiles, and finds where the wheel is loose, and undoes a screw – he finds where the pram handle is loose and undoes another screw. But the handle will not come for the rust and the years. And the wheel is just a wheel that skids over the river when he throws it down.

  Then, Half Harris pushes the pram onto its side, and he dances on the pram in his boots until the thing splits and gives, and among the things it gives is the handle, made for digging fish out of frozen rivers.

  On the ice, Half Harris takes the handle of his pram, and he kneels where the fish is looking up at him, and he hits at the ice and hits it until his eyes are so full of his own river he cannot see.

  And then, a little while later, the little while it took to cut into the ice, the fisherman makes for home. The evening shines on Half Harris making his way back to the town, and in his arms, cradled like a baby, wrapped in an old grey blanket and still caught in its bed of river-ice, is the fish.

  Half Harris walks back from the river, slowly. Without his pram. Just the bundle in his arms, past the factories, the old tips, into the town. Stopping now and then to peel back the blanket and look at the face of the fish to see if it has moved, but it never does. Up the High Street with the streetlights coming on, the gold glowing on the wet tarmac. He’s dragging his feet, peering down at the road like he always does, but not stopping, now, making for home, shaking his head and moving his mouth like he would talk.

  He pauses outside the cinema to think, then sits down on the kerb and bows his head over his bundle. And he stays there like that, unmoving, just his shoulders shaking
, maybe with the cold, maybe not, and Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins taps his watch and stops his begging. ‘What’s the matter, Half?’

  Half Harris just rocks himself and the fish, and sits on the kerb and the tears are falling from his chin, all salt onto the blanket, his jumblesale trousers, and the road.

  The cinemagoers stop their queuing and forget about their decisions regarding toffees or mints, ‘What’s the matter, Half?’

  ‘No good fishing today, mun?’

  ‘Where’s the pram then?’ And they look back down the road to look for the pram they have seen every day for years, but it is not there.

  Now Half Harris is crying on the kerb, rocking his bundle, and for all the tears, there is no noise in his crying, for this is the man without a voice, born to be a poet. And they crowd round him, the cinemagoers, and Ianto Jenkins, all else forgotten, until the window of the Savings Bank rattles open and the head of Matty Harris, no relation, comes out into the evening and says, ‘What’s up with Half then?’ for in his head he has heard the sound of a child crying, and the rattle of small bones.

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins asks Half if he may see his bundle, and what is the trouble, and he takes a corner of grey blanket and folds it back. There, clear, crystal, its ripples still folding and dipping, is the river-ice. And in the ice with its mouth open, lying in its bed with its eye, dulling now, fixed up at Half Harris, is the fish.

  The voice of Matty Harris, who can’t quite see from his window, comes again. ‘What’s up with Half?’

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins looks up, ‘Don’t ask, mun, come down and see. The river’s frozen, looks like. . . ?’

  The door of the Savings Bank opens and out comes Matty Harris, no relation, to see what there is to see. And what is there to see but half a man rocking a fish?

  Then Half Harris closes his eyes, lies down right there on the pavement and curls up round like he was a fish too. And another voice comes, ‘Half?’

  It is the voice of Philip ‘Factual’ Philips, Deputy Librarian, on his way back up the High Street from delivering books down in Plymouth Street. ‘Half, mun? What’s up now? Oh that’s no good, that pavement, come here . . .’

  And Philip Factual Philips goes to lift Half Harris up. But there is a cough, and another. And an, ‘I will take him,’ and it is Matty Harris himself who bends down to the kerb instead. And it is Matty Harris Deputy Manager of the Savings Bank who takes up a man who is no relation at all of his, in his own arms, and starts a walk up the hill to Maerdy Street, with Factual Philips following behind, and Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins coming on slowly with a gaggle of the cinemagoers, for there are no films about fish caught in ice, not that they know of.

  With Matty Harris carrying Half, and the rest following, they pass the Public Library and the granite statue, its face wet and gold in the drizzle and the streetlights. They pass the dressmaker’s with its draped half-figures and Tutt Bevan the Undertaker’s, his windows and stone doves all dark now, lights out like a lid’s been nailed down.

  And on the way up the hill, doors open, and questions are asked, ‘What’s up with Half, now?’

  ‘What’s happened to the pram?’

  ‘What’s he got by there, then?’

  ‘The river froze, did it? But it’s only September . . .’

  ‘Half Harris has caught the fish, bless him, bach, the love.’

  When the answers are given and more questions asked, voices pick up the sounds and carry them away. They are carried as far as the ears of Eunice Harris in Bethesda Mansions, wife of Matty Harris, and on the way, to those of Laddy Merridew dawdling along Garibaldi Street on his way back from being on his own down the park. Laddy collected his bird from Ianto Jenkins after school, and the bird is stretching its wings, fluttering against the bars of its rowan cage, under his jumper.

  Laddy Merridew runs to the end of Garibaldi Street to see the small procession coming up the hill. He stands behind Mrs Bennie Parrish and her bad leg, which forgot to limp along Garibaldi Street in its rush to see what’s what, and Mrs Eunice Harris, who has come out with a curler in, and left her front door open, too.

  So that when the procession gets to The Cat on the corner of Maerdy Street, there is a small crowd either side of the road. Maggie, the publican’s wife, has stopped pulling pints and has a coat over her shoulders, standing out on the pavement. And there is Tutt Bevan, and there is Tommo Price just popped in for a half, and there is the publican, and there is James Little and his wife Edith out for a small birthday cider, and a draggle of drinkers, not drinking, everyone come out onto the pavement where Half Harris used to park his pram. And on the other side of the road, half the residents of Garibaldi Street and Bethesda Mansions, and a boy in glasses with a bird under his jumper.

  Someone at the back by The Cat says, ‘No one bringing old sticks home in a pram tonight then?’ And someone else says, ‘No prams needed, by the look.’

  And as Half Harris is carried by in the arms of the Deputy Manager of the Savings Bank, someone with mauve hair and a curler hanging by a thread, says, ‘Matthew Harris, what do you think you are doing?’

  And Matty Harris, carrying Half as straight-backed as he can, does not stop. Instead, he walks a little slower for people to see what he is carrying, and he smiles, ‘I am taking Half Harris home.’

  The drabble of drinkers nod and agree, pull their collars up and follow all the way along Maerdy Street to number eleven.

  And the ice is melting round the fish in the arms of Half Harris, himself carried in the arms of Matty Harris, who does not go to the front door of number eleven but down the alley to the back, his feet squeaking on cinders, taking his brother home.

  Much later, maybe, Ianto Jenkins and Laddy Merridew and all the others who have waited and wondered in the street in the cold night air, will see Half Harris and Matty in Half’s bedroom window, smiling the both, holding the fish up for all to see in the streetlights. Maybe as they watch, the fish will turn this way and that and the light will catch its scales, covering the whole small world of Maerdy Street in stars.

  And back at the river, the water is flowing again unseen, the branches of the beeches are pulling their leaves out of the last of the ice, for rivers round these parts never freeze in September.

  By the Old Sheds at the End of Maerdy Street

  When Half and Matty Harris have gone from Half’s bedroom window, and there is no more to see, the watchers may go off home via The Cat on the corner, just to make sure it is still there. But Ianto Jenkins walks towards the other end of Maerdy Street, and the boy Laddy Merridew comes too, to where the houses stop because they cannot go any further. There are sheds instead, built on the old coal tip, where what grass there is holds on tight to the black earth and turns into a steep path, a back way to the town. And at the sheds, they stop, out of the wind. The beggar shivers, ‘Cold out here. All well then?’

  ‘Something happened in the park, Mr Jenkins, I took the bird out to feed him, and he flew on his string, like a kite.’

  ‘In that case, it’s time to let him go, isn’t it?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Sounds like he is ready, to me.’

  A pause. ‘I suppose so.’

  And there, on the grass, up behind the old sheds, and away from the streetlights, Laddy Merridew takes the rowan cage from under his jumper, while Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins keeps watch and listens. ‘Looks all quiet to me, Maggot.’

  Laddy sighs, ‘OK then,’ and undoes the string tied round the bird’s leg. There is the small sound of wings beating on the growing darkness and the bird is gone. Laddy Merridew winds the string round his finger, ‘I hope he’s OK. I hope he finds his home?’

  Ianto Jenkins pulls his jacket tight, ‘He will.’

  ‘Gran didn’t want him in the house anyway. She’s got her budgie.’

  ‘Fight, would they, the budgie and the bird?’

  Laddy tries a smile. ‘It would have been different if my grandad was still around.’

 
‘He’d have said OK to the bird, would he?’

  Laddy Merridew’s voice wavers, ‘He was fun.’ Then he brightens a little. ‘They let me see him, before, you know.’ He pushes his glasses back up his nose, looks gravely at the beggar. ‘Have you seen a dead body, Mr Jenkins?’

  For a moment, the beggar says nothing. Then he takes a breath, ‘I have, Maggot.’

  ‘It’s funny, isn’t it? I mean, not funny ha ha but the other sort.’

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins nods, and the boy keeps talking. ‘I didn’t really want to, but Mam said he would only look asleep. She was lying. He didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘They’d taken his teeth away. He used to take them out himself to make me laugh . . .’ Laddy pauses a moment. ‘But that was just for me. He’d have really hated not having them in.’

  The beggar says nothing.

  ‘I was eight and a half. I went to the church and my mam cried, and Gran didn’t. They didn’t let me go to the cemetery, though. How old were you when you saw a body?’

  ‘Five, or thereabouts. I forget exactly, now.’

  ‘Did they take their teeth out as well?’

  Ianto Passchendaele Jenkins sighs. ‘No, Maggot. She was too young. My mam, it was.’

  There is a silence. Then the beggar starts talking.

  ‘My mam’s name was Hannah, Maggot. I was so young when she died. But I remember some things. I remember her smell – river water and salt. Her clothes were rough sometimes. I remember an apron like a length of sacking, rough when I put my cheek to it, and Mam holding my head and looking down at me. But when I look up . . .’ Ianto Jenkins pauses again, his head on one side, ‘I cannot see her face.

  ‘But her voice I do remember, better than anything. Telling me stories, stories, always stories. About birds, “the messengers”, she called them. Oh, she said there were secrets in everything. I can still hear her telling me how birds are lucky or unlucky, robins especially. “Ianto Jenkins,” she said, “always listen. Watch the signs. Robins know things. Bad things. Watch . . .” and I hear my da then, laughing, “Aww Hannah Jenkins, filling the lad’s head with your old talk. Been spending too much time with the spinster-women.” ’